#imperfect—but done!!!!

[brown-little-robin]

48: Neutral Territory

part one | previous | next | masterlist | ao3 version

On the first Monday of September, Thad will start college at Metropolis University. That leaves him one week to, as Joseph puts it, “settle in”. One in-between week where Joseph is working and Thad is free to wander around as he chooses.

He doesn’t feel like he’s “settling in”. He feels like he’s split in half. He’s half happy, half… something else.

When he’s with Joseph, he’s happy. Simple as that. He hangs around Joseph whenever he can and only leaves him when he has to.

Joseph has taken to braiding Thad’s hair every night before bed, so that it stays out of his face at night, he says. In actuality, Thad thinks Joseph just likes braiding Thad’s hair. It’s embarrassing. It’s horrible. It makes Thad purr.

He likes it.

Thad always takes the braid out in the morning. He leaves his hair long and wild in the daytime, like Bart’s, only not, because, in this house, no one but himself thinks of him as a clone of Bart. It makes him smile sometimes, knowing that Joseph doesn’t think of his hair as like Bart. To Joseph, Bart's hair would be like Thad. Sometimes the long hair bothers him, but Thad can live with that. You win some, you lose some, as Joseph says sometimes.

Thad learns things about Joseph. Bit by bit. Joseph likes orange muffins in the mornings, and he has an assortment of ridiculous robes to sleep in that he changes out of before he leaves his room in the morning, maybe because they expose so much of his chest. Thad doesn’t mind; he lost his capacity to react emotionally to nudity a long time ago. Thad’s favorite of Joseph’s robes so far is a yellow one with blue dragons on it. It clashes with Joseph’s hair and his skin. The first time he saw the yellow robe, it nearly made Thad give himself up by laughing.

Thad spies on Joseph sometimes, vibrating himself into the attic space above Joseph’s room’s ceiling. It’s a dark little habit; he’ll break it one of these days, maybe, when he stops feeling like Joseph stops existing when Thad’s not watching him.

It does occur to Thad to ask Joseph if he can sleep in the same room. Luckily, he’s not insane, so he immediately banishes the thought from his mind.

When he’s not with Joseph… when he’s not with Joseph, he’s back to being Thaddeus Thawne again.

The Plum Room is his territory, and the rest of the house is… neutral territory. Adeline’s suite is enemy grounds. Maybe he shouldn’t think of her as an enemy, but he can’t seem to help it. That sort of thing is built into his DNA.

Joey assures Thad that Adeline tolerates him, likes him, even, but every time she speaks to him it’s so brusque Thad can’t help but think of her as a President Thawne, a looming figure with all the power. He avoids her, and he avoids her rooms.

The great room and the kitchen and pantry are neutral zones. Thad doesn’t like them. They’re too open. They make his back itch. The pantry is better—it’s small. He feels safe there, surrounded by bread and peanut butter and sacks of flour and sugar and a virtual colony of snacks. It’s stupid. It’s stupid how safe it makes him feel, all that food, available for him at any time.

He takes advantage of the food at random times, testing the promise, and when Joseph notices, it just makes him smile, which makes Thad happy. So maybe it’s not entirely stupid.

The east side of the mansion is neutral territory. The pool room is beautiful, alluring, tempting… dangerous. It would be too easy to relax into that water and just—lose himself. He might dissociate in there, and he’s had Adeline’s warning that he could drown that way running through his head since she said it. No, the pool room is wonderful, but he doesn’t use it. The closest he comes is sitting on the edge of the pools, thinking. Just… thinking. Swirling his feet in the water, sometimes.

The water feels like CRAYDL.

He thinks maybe he’s mourning, or whatever twisted semblance of that emotion he’s capable of.

He doesn’t talk about CRAYDL to Joseph. Not much. Just bits and pieces, here and there. Facts. Not feelings.

The music room is Joseph’s room. Thad loves it the same way he loves Joseph—in a shockingly uncomplicated way. It’s a good room, it has beautiful things in it, and it’s full of strange knowledge. It’s a puzzle Thad wants to figure out. It’s a refuge when he gets tired of the rest of the house.

The exercise room—

Thad went in there once, when Joseph was gone. He was bored and feeling vaguely guilty for existing; he wanted to work out.

He got as far as resting his hand on a treadmill and suddenly had an urge to vomit so strong that he had to run away.

The next day, he’d gradually worked around to asking Joseph if, hypothetically, if Thad wanted to, which he doesn’t, if he could go for a run, just for fun, just to keep himself in shape or whatever, and if that would be terrible, or selfish, since he can’t be a vigilante like the rest of Flash’s little cadre.

Joseph said yes, of course Thad could go for a run, whenever he wanted to. He looked away from Thad as he signed, a mercy Thad didn’t realize he needed until it became a lifeline.

Joseph said, “You don’t have to put your powers to use as a hero, Thad. It’s okay to just let them out for fun.”

Thad had been silent a little too long. Joseph had added, “Go be a kid if you want to. Run around.”

So. Thad tried.

And failed.

The Flash is out there somewhere. The idea of running into him paralyzed Thad before he took a single step. All he could do was stand in the yard watching the frozen landscape and trying to let the world speed back up around him.

So. Thad is half happy, half unhappy, and he’s still useless.

Upstairs is mostly good, apart from Adeline’s study and the Green Room. Thad likes his room. He likes Joseph’s room, too, when Joseph is there. He feels safe with him. The upstairs hallways, though… well. They’re the maid May’s property, and Thad doesn’t really know what that means.

He’d met her on Monday. He tried to ignore her like he used to ignore the servants who occasionally invaded CRAYDL to bring parts for repair, but she’d said hello to him directly. Thad had frozen, recalculating, and then said hello back. She’d asked how he liked the mansion. He’d stayed silent for a moment, calculating. What did she mean by that? What did she want? What kind of power did she have here? She was a servant, so surely not much. But a trusted servant, so he has to be cautious.

Thad hates not having all the information so, so much. He feels like Bart.

Finally, he’d said, “Where I grew up, servants don’t talk like that.”

It was a gamble. If she was like CRAYDL, trusted and valued, almost a friend to Adeline, she could complain. Thad would be in trouble then.

May had stared at him for a moment.

“…Sorry to hear that,” she’d said. “Where did you grow up?”

Another question. Grife. How much was Thad allowed to tell her?

The maid added, “I know about everything Adeline does, so don’t worry about that. I tell you, the non-disclosure agreements I had to sign when I got this job… that was decades ago, but I still remember like it was yesterday!”

Oh, great. So she is like CRAYDL. That makes her approximately equal with Thad, power-wise. Thad recalculated his approach again. They’re going to have to establish a hierarchy here somehow. Better sooner than later.

He took a deep breath, wishing he had the armor of his Inertia costume.

“I’m from the future,” he’d said. “I’m the genetically engineered clone of Bartholomew Allen the Second, also known as Impulse, and I used to be what you might call a supervillain.”

He paused out of habit, waiting for the reaction.

“Nice to meet you,” May said. “Your name’s Thad, isn’t it?”

“Thad Thaw—”

Thad cut himself off. He wanted to throw up.

He found his cheeks hot, eyes averted—when did he break eye contact? When did he back up as if the maid could hurt him? He bit his lip savagely, then looked her in the eye and enunciated, “Sophos. Thaddeus. Anacletus. Free.”

The maid looked at him and her expression reminded him of Helen. It was—it was—it burned him. She said, “You’ll get used to it.”

And Thad fled.

On Tuesday morning, Thad opened the door of the Plum Room and found a plate of cookies on the floor. Instantly suspicious, he’d immediately gone and asked Joey what they were and who they were from.

“Just cookies, nothing bad,” Joey had signed. “From May, probably.”

“Why?”

Joey shrugged. “A housewarming gift?”

Thad scowled. “A what?”

“A welcome gift,” Joey had explained patiently.

A welcome gift.

As in, a gift from someone who belongs here, to someone who just joined, as a sign of peace and also a way to express the disparity in their resources. May is showing that she can afford to give him a gift.

Yeah, Thad is definitely second in this hierarchy.

He’s tentatively alright with how things are going with May, though. She doesn’t talk to him after that first time. When their paths cross, she just says hello and nods at him, and she doesn’t seem to expect anything of Thad in return.

After so long as a tool, it’s wonderful to not be expected to do anything.

Two more days left. Saturday and Sunday. And Saturday won’t be boring. Joseph is having some of his Titans friends over for “a get-together”. Strictly non-hero-work-related, Joseph assured Thad. Generously, Thad has agreed to let Joseph present him to his friends, even though they all know Wally West.

He won’t be expected to stay with Joseph’s friends long. All he has to do is go say hello and leave. It will be fine.

And then—on Monday—he’ll start college. His official excuse to get out of hero work.

Joseph’s fingers comb through Thad’s hair. Thad leans back into his hand with a sigh. It’s Friday night, and Joseph is braiding his hair before bed.

Joseph stops for a moment, then picks up the actual comb and gives Thad’s hair one last comb-through. He tugs gently, and Thad tilts his head back, giving Joseph access to the hair at his forehead.

This also gives Joseph access to Thad’s throat, of course. Thad thinks of that, head tilted back, eyes closed, feeling Joseph’s fingers tracing firm lines through his hair, gathering logical chunks of his hair for a braid. His throat is totally exposed. A month ago, Thad couldn’t have endured this. He’d have vibrated out of his skin rather than let anyone hold his head by the hair for a prolonged period of time.

Now… Thad thinks of it, and he is deeply, deeply disturbed that he fails to fear properly.

The pressure on his hair lulls him into a trance. He remembers being a very, very young clone rocking himself to sleep in the liquid of the nutrient womb, not even educated enough yet to know what he was instinctively mimicking—human connection.

With a start, Thad remembers his throat tipped up, exposed. He remembers to be afraid. He remembers that he can’t be fully afraid anymore. Not of Joseph, not all the time; he can’t keep it up. Fear, his only lifelong companion, which outlived even CRAYDL, comes and goes.

What is he, without his fear?

Thaddeus tries. He gathers fear in his chest, concentrates hard, feels his heartbeat in his throat.

He is afraid.

Joseph pushes Thad’s head forward so he can reach the hair at the back. Thad puts his chin down obediently. Then he remembers to be afraid.

Something is not right.

He’s happy.

Something isn’t right.

[bruciemilf]

“Bruce is emotionally incompetent and can’t step outside his own morality” yeah it’s a character flaw.

“Dick is extremely stubborn and thinks he’s right all the time” yeah it’s a character flaw.

“Jason has hypocritical tendencies” yeah it’s a character flaw.

“ Tim is entitled and doesn’t think about people when seeking results, and often acts uncaring” yeah it’s a character flaw.

“Damian is rude and bratty” yeah, it’s a character flaw.

Also, some people may not even regard everything listed above as flaws.

Having negative traits allows incredible flexibility within your characters, what makes them intriguing, what makes them easy to relate to. If you want to write people, then write people. But they can’t be good and clean all the time.

[cozylittleartblog]

Columbo and the Knight (1984)

put me in the universe where Columbo ran through the 1980s and had a crossover episode with Knight Rider. I think they deserved it, and I am not just saying that because they're my two favorite Old Shows. @telebeast wrote a little fanfic blurb about it and I HAD to visualize it into a comic (which is also the longest comic I have finished thus far at five pages...), so writing credit goes to them.

Autism W!

[eldritchgray]

Happy World Turtle Day, have some catchphrases!

[warning-heckboop]

This is the dynamic I want out of season 2 actually

[cecoeur]

it's hell on earth to be heavenly them's the breaks, they don't come gently

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

What if all the yeerks suddenly died? AU

Part 3.5; Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 are here. All you need to know from earlier parts is that all the yeerks disappeared at once after the events of #19, and that the Animorphs and ex-controllers have been trying to resume a normal life ever since.

• Hedrick Chapman wanted to be an ecologist when he grew up.  Or a veterinarian.  Barring that, he’d have settled for being rich.  At no point did he ever want to be a vice principal of a criminally underfunded public high school.  That had been a yeerk decision, not his.  Certainly not his.  And yet, here he is.

• Then again, Chapman reflects as he watches Andy Mitchell vomit into the potted plant on his desk, this job has recently involved far more working with wild animals than he initially anticipated.

“It was horrible,” Andy sobs.  “Her f-face, it… it split open.  I could see bones under the—”  He cuts off, retching more.

Probably in shock, Chapman thinks.  A perfectly understandable reaction to having seen someone morph for the first time.  “What did she turn into?”

“What?”  Andy lifts his head.  Milk-pale, except for those red-rimmed eyes.  Definitely in shock.  “What do you mean?”

“Rachel.”  Chapman didn’t get a name, but that description could only apply to so many students.  “What did she morph?”

“I don’t know,” Andy wails.  “Her face got all baggy and horrible, like the skin was coming off, and it…”  He makes a pulling motion, away from his own mouth.

“So she turned into an elephant.”  Chapman notes that down.  “Then what?”

“You don’t understand,” Andy says.  “She… she… her body was melting!”

Chapman sets down the pen, looking him in the eye.  “I believe you.  You saw her turn into an elephant.  Did she try to attack you, once she was done?”

“I don’t know!  I ran for it.”

“Smart choice.”  Chapman massages his left temple, which is where his Rachel-shaped headache seems to have taken up full-time residence in Iniss 226’s absence. “I figured as much, since we’re not having this conversation in the hospital.”

“It was horrible,” Andy says again.

“And what did you say to Tobias Fangor that precipitated this incident?”

Andy blinks.  His color looks a little better, anyway.  “How did you know that?”

Chapman does not roll his eyes.  Because he’s an adult, and in control of his own body.  “I just so happen to be fluent in English, Mr. Mitchell.  Which is, by enormous coincidence, the language used to write your disciplinary file.  I’m also capable of basic pattern recognition.”

“What are you going to do to her?” Andy asks.  “Rachel.  What happens to her?”

An excellent question.  Bringing a deadly weapon to school results in a ten-day suspension.  But if Chapman applies that statute in this case, then he’d be forced to suspend all five Animorphs for the rest of eternity.  Threatening a classmate can result in expulsion, though it sounds like no actual threats were issued.  There isn’t a rule on the books for showing a classmate something so disturbing his brain tries to turn itself inside-out from sheer horror, although in light of recent developments there really should be.

“Not your concern,” Chapman says.  “Thank you for telling me.  Back to class.”

Andy takes several more minutes to collect himself before he goes.  Chapman uses that time to catch up on paperwork, though he does offer the young man a tissue.  And a breath mint.

• Andy is barely out Chapman’s door when it swings open again and Tom Berenson strides in.  “You have to tell my parents it’s not Jake’s fault,” he announces.

I am not your therapist, Chapman would dearly like to say.  I am not your best friend.  I am not, regardless of Iniss 226’s relationship with Temrash 114, your fucking subordinate.  I do not ‘have to’ do anything.

Not being snippy with vulnerable teenagers is probably one of those things they’d cover M.Ed. programs, if Chapman had ever actually been to school for this job.  “Why don’t you take a deep breath and explain from the beginning.”  There.  That sounds like something a vice principal would say.

“Jake.”  Tom sits down.  “My parents keep forcing him to go to school.  They think he’s, like, being a moody teenager.  Or faking it.”

Chapman may not be a therapist, or even a college graduate, but he does recognize that Jake’s entitled to as many sick days as he feels like taking, for the rest of eternity.  However, “That’s between your parents and your brother.”

“You can’t do anything?” Tom asks.  “You have the ability to give kids permanent excuses for made-up medical conditions— Iniss did it all the time—”

“I am not,” Chapman says severely, “Iniss 226.”

Tom stiffens.  “I just meant…”

“I recognize it is not your fault you have entirely too much information about the administration of this school.”  Chapman tries to soften his tone.  “But if you can do without using the Krav Maga or ability to home-assemble a working handgun that you also didn’t choose to receive, you can do without that.”

“But— Jake.  They don’t get it.”

“I will speak with your parents.  I’ll express these concerns to them,” Chapman says.  “In the meantime, might I suggest you focus on your own grades?  Thanks to Iniss, you’ve missed far too much school already.  If you want to have any hope of graduating on time, you need to catch up.”

“Why?”

He says it so simply.  It’s a question Chapman’s been asked before: Why bother?  Of all the kids who’ve asked him, only Marco Santiago has been more entitled to ask.  Why, indeed, bother with school?  Why care about Civics and Algebra when the world itself has already ended around you? 

A real vice principal would make a speech about learning being its own reward, or the importance of insuring one’s future.  “Because,” Chapman says, “when I speak to Coach Lu about letting you back on the basketball team, he’ll point out that student athletes need a minimum two-point-oh GPA.”

Tom’s whole face lights up.  Suddenly looking years younger.  Looking like a kid, for the first time in months.  “You’d do that for me?”

That M.Ed. program no doubt would have advised against bribes.  “No skin off my butt,” Chapman says.  “Now go do your homework.  And let the adults worry about your brother.”

“Yes sir!”  And he’s off like a shot.  Possibly even, miracle of miracles, off to work on that backlog of English essays.

• The first time Jake called a meeting in Cassie’s barn, even though they don’t really have a reason to meet anymore, it was to discuss what they can do to help the hork-bajir—taxxon alliance.  The second time, it was to make a plan to help Tobias get caught up in school.  The third time, he doesn’t even make an excuse.

Rachel complains about the press hounding them for a statement.  Marco complains about his parents making out on the couch while he’s in the house.  Tobias complains about Ms. Paloma’s workload, and about the hork-bajir constitution negotiations.  Jake complains about his dad’s horrifying questions about how morphing affects puberty.  Ax complains about Alloran’s frequent, extremely snobby, emails.  Cassie complains about her parents constantly asking her to morph their patients to figure out what’s wrong with them.

It’s silly.  It’s fun.  It’s playing at being teenagers with teenage problems.

“This time next week,” Jake announces, at the end.  “And if there are any major developments in the meantime, keep the rest of us posted.”

• “Tobias Fangor’s aunt called again,” Principal Walsh says, when Chapman gets to the office on a Tuesday morning.  “Don’t you think we should at least speak to her, see what she wants?”

“No,” Chapman says.  “I don’t.”

“His uncle.  This…”  She glances at the paperwork.  “Axel Mili-Esgarrouth.  Didn’t show up for last parent-teacher conference.”

Small mercies.  Chapman doesn’t explain Tobias’s living situation.  Doesn’t reveal that he owes the kid’s parents the kind of debt that cannot be repaid in an entire lifetime of favors.  Doesn’t deign to find out if Maggie Walsh knows what an andalite is.

“Tobias Fangor,” he says, “is part of the one-tenth of one percent of students who are, somehow, attending this high school because they want to be here.  If you give him reason to transfer out, I will resign.”

• There are reasons that Chapman stays in this job, despite being stashed here against his will.  Not the pay.  Not the sullen ingratitude from the teens he helps.  Certainly not the parents.  It’s because he’s needed here, now more than ever.

• He stays for the times Loren’s kid comes skittering into his office, wild-eyed and muttering, “Sorry, I just, sorry, I’ll be out of your hair soon, I promise…”  Chapman knows to open the window, when that happens, knows to shove a chair already well-deformed with talon marks out from behind his desk.

•  He stays for the kids who on paper had straight As, perfect attendance, promising gigs at The Sharing — and overnight became failing wrecks with insomnia and dozens of unexplained absences.  He can explain to their teachers, to their parents, in a way that someone who hasn’t been there will never be able to understand.

•  He stays for the way Eva Santiago clasps his hand and says, “You will look out for him.”  Half-supplication, half-command.

•  He even, despite himself, stays for Tom.  Who showed up at school the day after Aegas 1909 died, trying to pretend like nothing had happened.  Who is a truly godawful actor — he took one look at Chapman, went dead-white, and ran for it.  Who was backing away even as Chapman cornered him in the parking lot.  “Wait!” Chapman had said.  “Wait! Iniss is dead too.”  And Tom had burst into tears.

•  No one else would understand them.  No one else would know why nearly every one of the seventy-three ex-hosts in this school has been sent to his office for not paying attention, for sleeping in class, for allegedly being stoned during school hours.  No one else would overlook the absolute illegal mess of Tobias’s paperwork, or give Rachel a fortieth second chance after she has yet another hair-trigger reaction to being bumped in the hall.

•  But there’s one reason above all others that he stays in this job.

“You don’t mind?” Melissa says, every single time he offers her a ride to school.  As if he’s doing her a favor, letting her take up space in the car he’s already driving that way.  As if it’s a chore to get to spend time with his daughter and hear about her day.

“You sure you don’t mind?” he always answers, smiling, and she always runs to get her bag.

It takes so little — a smile, a nod, an offer to feed the damn cat, sometimes even just a glance her way — to get her to light up with gratitude.  It breaks his fucking heart to know the reason why.

He drives her every day.  He helps her with homework every night, and cooks her dinner afterward.  He drops more than he can afford on leg-warmers and Lisa Frank and Limited Too.  He’s every parenting cliché: on a trial separation from Alison, spoiling their kid rotten because of the guilt.

Anyway, time with Melissa is worth a hell of a lot more than mere money.  And it’s almost enough to make up for dealing with parents.  Almost.

•  “But Cassie’s a good kid,” Michelle Logan says.  “She’s always been responsible, and she’s always taken care of herself.  There has to be some kind of mistake.”

Chapman looks at the good kid sitting between her parents.  Thinks of watching her rip a hork-bajir’s throat out, taking an innocent life along with the guilty one.  Trusts that she had no choice in the matter, because if it was him she’d killed instead then he would have understood.

“I recognize that Cassie has had an overall clean record thus far,” Chapman says.  “However, the Rain Forest Café is filing charges against the school for the impersonation and theft of several live animals, and I don’t have other suspects.”

“Cassie would never,” Michelle said.  “She’s a good kid.  She just fell in with the wrong crowd, that’s all.”

“Of that,” Chapman says dryly, “I have no doubt.”

Cassie lifts her head then to look straight at him.  “I’m sorry,” she says, not sounding it.  “I was trying to help the parrots.”

I.  Yes, she’s a good kid.  “It’s admirable,” Chapman tells her, “that you’re covering for your friends.”  Probably also on the list of things a real vice principal wouldn’t say.  “But there is no way that you could have acted alone.”

“Can you prove that?” Cassie asks.

“Can you even prove it was her?” Michelle says.  “What about Marco, or Rachel?  They morph.  Isn’t Tobias a bird quite often?  Who says it wasn’t him?”

Cassie and Chapman make eye contact.  Marco is one incident away from being expelled.  Rachel is about negative eight incidents away, and Chapman can only do so much to protect her.  Tobias isn’t supposed to be at this school at all, which the board will surely notice if he comes to their attention.  Cassie confessed, because Cassie can take the heat.  And Chapman’s letting her take that fall.

“It’s okay,” Cassie tells the adults.  “It’s only a week of detention.”

Because that was the lowest sentence he could propose, while still avoiding a legal proceeding.  She really is a good kid.

•  “Where you going?” Jake asks, not looking up from his Spanish homework, when Tom unlocks the front door at 8:00 PM on a Sunday.

“Sharing meeting,” Tom says casually.  “Wanna come?”

Jake sets down his pen.  He looks at his brother.

Tom stares back, smirking.

“Where are you actually going?” Jake says.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”  And with that, Tom walks out the door.

Despite himself, Jake follows.

 • It’s an under-21 nightclub that Jake vaguely recognizes as being a front for The Sharing, but the crowd spilling onto the lawn around it is truly all ages.  There’s a giggling pair of 10-year-olds standing too close to the beer keg for his comfort, a middle-aged guy handing out glow sticks, and a woman with gray hair and a hand-knit sweater smoking a joint on the curb.

“Tommy-boy!” That’s the guy standing next to the door, an ex-controller Jake thinks is named Bill.  He throws out his arms and, before Jake can react, has grabbed Tom, spun him around, dipped him, and kissed him on the mouth.

“Hands off, asshole,” Tom says, laughing as he pulls loose.  “You are so fucking drunk.”

“Sssshhhhhh,” Bill says, not disconfirming the accusation.  He points to the Employees Only printed on the door.  “Just meat-puppets tonight.  Ditch the tagalong.”

“Oh, come on.”  Tom gestures at Jake.  “The kid was a controller for a hot second last November.”

Bill squints at Jake.  “Wait, really?”

Jake shrugs.  He doesn’t want to talk about it.  “Yeah.”

“Well all right, then.”  Bill ruffles Jake’s hair, Tom slaps Bill on the ass, and they shoulder their way inside.

• The club is jammed full of bodies, most of them sweaty and partway naked.  Jake retreats until his back is against the nearest wall, looking over the mess of dancing humans.  Tom has split off, chest-bumping with some other guy Jake doesn’t know and stealing a drag off his cigarette.  None of them are acting remotely like controllers, which is reassuring, and now he’s wondering if it’d be rude to leave without Tom about 10 seconds after having arrived.

 No one would notice if he turned into a bug, he decides after about an hour of this.  Seriously.  This crowd would not notice, and it’s not like they’d care if they did.  Tom can find his own way home.

A small form sidles up next to him.  “Hi, Jake.”

“Melissa!” he says too loudly, glad to see a familiar face.  “Hi.”

“You want some drink?”  She holds up a clear plastic cup, three-quarters full of liquid.  “There’s plenty more over…”  She points to the punchbowl behind her.

“Drink?” Jake asks.

Melissa shrugs.  “From the empty bottles, it’s mostly beer and tequila, with a little bit of Bloody Mary mix.  Which is probably why it…”  She grimaces down at her cup.  “Looks, smells, and tastes like urine.”

“Um.”  Jake peers at her cup; her assessment isn’t wrong.  “I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Cool.  There’s also a guy around here with E, if that’s more your speed.”

“Gee.”  Jake looks back over the crowd, which includes several couples openly pawing at each other, a group of four with hands inside each other’s clothes, and Tom apparently attempting to eat some woman’s tongue before she can eat his.  “There’s ecstasy here?  I never would’ve guessed.”

“People are just glad the war’s over,” Melissa says.  “And your brother’s a really good kisser.”

It’s official: this is worse than the gathering of alien slugs plotting Earth’s destruction that Jake expected to find.  It’s not even a proper orgy, just a whole crapton of giddy ex-hosts hugging each other and then getting too enthusiastic about the hugs.

“Look,” Jake says.  “This has been nice, but I have school tomorrow, so…”

•  Which is when the commotion breaks out near the door.

“Gatecrasher!”  That’s Bill, brandishing a mason jar as he continues to yell.  “We have a gatecrasher!”

Several people crowd around him to get a better look, someone holding up a glow stick to reveal that, sure enough, the jar in his hands contains a single wolf spider.  Among this crowd, animals that act strange or aren’t native to California don’t go without notice.

«I’m innocent!  And even if I’m not you can’t prove anything,» the spider says.  «Maybe I just wandered by accidentally, and this is all a big misunderstanding.»

“This thing’s for full members only,” Tom says, straight-faced.  “There’s a sign on the door, can’t miss it.”

«Maybe I want to join the Sharing?» the spider suggests.

This gets him several unamused looks.  “Toss him out,” Li says.  “And let’s get back to the keg stands.”

“Nah, let him stay!”  That’s Koko, piping up from the back.  “God knows every person in this bar owes the Animorphs a drink.”

Looking between them, Bill turns back to the jar.  Finally he lifts it up to eye level, starting at the spider’s middle two eyes.  “Repeat after me,” Bill intones.

«Uh-huh.»

“What your mom doesn’t know…”

«What my mom doesn’t know…»

“Will not hurt her.”

«Dude, I wouldn’t narc on you!  What do you take me for?»

“A chip off the old block,” Tom mutters.

“Repeat it,” Bill says severely.

«What my mom doesn’t know, won’t hurt her.»

“Great!”  Bill unscrews the lid of the jar, dumping it out on the ground.  “Welcome to the Sharing.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Melissa says to a slowly-demorphing Marco, “I got the same speech.”

“It really does.”  He presses a hand over his heart.  “Now, someone mentioned buying me a drink?”

•  A small nightclub on the outskirts of the city burns to the ground, shortly after having every piece of its furniture and glassware smashed in a pile in the middle of the floor.  The local police force, over 30% of whom were controllers three months ago, elects to ignore this development.

•  Chapman loathes paperwork to the absolute depths of his soul.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, is worse than filing paperwork to get permission to file paperwork, and yet here he is.  The state of California cannot possibly need this many copies of Ashley Shawn’s transcript.  This has to be a torment invented by an evil god to punish him for everything he did aboard the Jahar.  There is no other explanation.

So when Ms. Hanna comes skidding into his office and announces “Science wing! There’s a brawl!” his first thought is, oh thank god.

His second thought is to wonder why she came to get him, skipping the security officer and Principal Walsh, but they’re already running by the time that occurs to him.

When they get there the press of screaming-chanting bodies fills the hall from end to end, but kids still find room to crowd out of the way when they see Chapman coming.  The circle of spectators breaks long enough to reveal the melee at the center, and—

Oh hell.  Chapman can tell exactly why Ms. Hanna got him first.

Fiona Aherne has one hand fisted in the collar of Tom Berenson’s shirt, and is punching him repeatedly in the face.  Joe Lassen catches her around the middle and rips her off Tom, tossing her to the floor, only to be caught in a side-tackle by Li Saren.  Beyond them, Hailey Ng and Bill Renaldi are hanging onto Asher Reed, until Asher suddenly rolls forward and body-slams Bill to the floor.

Chapman winces — so much for not using that Krav Maga. He's knocked aside as Jake shoves past him and dives in to the fray.

Principal Walsh is across the battlefield, staring in bafflement.  Shouting ineffectually for everyone to stop.  She doesn’t know, of course, what Tom and Joe and Asher all have in common.  What Bill and Li and Fiona and Hailey do.

Li has Tom by the throat from behind, which is why Jake throws himself onto Li with the gracelessness typical of a high-schooler.  Li head-butts Jake, only to have Jake, snarling, bite him in the face.

“Stop!” Chapman bellows.  “ALL OF YOU!  STOP!”

Jake drops off Li.  Hailey drops Asher.  Slowly the others lower their fists, glaring.

Good to know everyone’s fear of Iniss 226 is still good for something.

“Everyone in the Biology classroom,” Chapman barks, pointing at the door.  “Bill’s lot near the windows, Tom and the others by the door.  Move it!”

Principal Walsh stares at Chapman in confusion, which deepens when everyone obeys him without question.  He beckons first to Ms. Hanna, then to Mr. Tidwell, pointing them into the room as well.  They also take their places without question, Mr. Tidwell supervising the voluntary half of the room as Ms. Hanna covers the involuntaries.

Pausing in the doorway, Chapman turns at last to face Maggie Walsh.  His boss.  Who has the ability to fire him, if she misunderstands the situation.  “It’s about yeerks,” he settles for telling her.

Her look of bafflement doesn’t fade.  “How?”

Chapman opens his mouth. Hunts for words.

“Jake had nothing to do with this.”

Chapman doesn’t have to turn his head to know who spoke from the involuntary side of the room.  What a surprise, a Berenson kid running his mouth.

“Thank you for your input, Thomas.”  He spins around.  “That isn’t your call.”

Tom crosses his arms.  Between the fingernail marks down his cheek and the broken knuckles of his right hand, he looks the very picture of delinquency.

“He’s right,” Joe says, from the voluntary side of the room.  “It’s nothing to do with Jake.”  In Chapman’s peripheral vision, Maggie Walsh blinks several times.  He’ll explain later.  Or try to.

“Fine,” Chapman says.  “Jake, get back to class.”

Jake lifts his chin, blood striping the lower half of his face.  “I chose to get involved,” he says.  “I’ll take my punishment.”

“Oh yeah?” Tom says.  “Then what was the fight about?”

Jake looks from one side of the room to the other.  Both sides have ninth graders, twelfth graders, jocks and nerds, white and Black and brown kids.  Jake’s probably smart enough to identify several ex-controllers, and to guess at the rest, but unable to tell how or why they sorted themselves like they did.  Nonetheless, after a second he opens his mouth.

“That’s what I thought,” Chapman cuts him off.  “Anyway, if I suspend you then Marco and Rachel will have burned down the school within a week.  Fix your nose, then back to class.”

Knowing when he’s beat, Jake leaves.  Chapman makes a note he’ll also have to explain to Maggie how morphing works, and that he didn’t just order a 14-year-old to hand-set a broken nose.

“The involuntaries started it,” Bill announces, the moment Jake is gone.

“Yeah,” Tom snaps, “and the voluntaries are the ones who—”

“Who were lied to, instead of being coerced?” Mr. Tidwell suggests.

Tom shuts his mouth.

“Asher called me a traitor.”  Li points a finger across the room.

“Six months ago Li told me,” Asher says quietly, “that I should really join the Sharing.”

“And so,” Chapman drawls, “you had no choice but to punch each other in the face.  Is that correct?”

Tom mutters something under his breath that Chapman chooses not to catch.  He can’t threaten them, not this crowd.  Most of them have survived worse hells than the Geneva Convention ever dreamed of.  Detention means nothing.

Fine.  Persuasion it’ll have to be.  Fuck his life.  Chapman raises his voice to address the involuntaries.  “They—” He points to the voluntary side of the room.  “Are not the enemy.  The yeerks are the enemy, and the yeerks are dead.  Don’t start doing their work for them, you hear me?”

There’s a long silence.  Asher scuffs the toe of his shoe on the floor.

“Yeah,” Tom says at last.  “We hear you.”

“Everyone get checked at the nurse’s office,” Chapman tells the room at large.  “You’re all suspended for the rest of the week.”

Maggie Walsh takes a seat next to Chapman, even as the kids all file out.  Yeah.  He owes her an explanation.  Taking a deep breath, he tries to sum up what just happened.  Hopefully in a thousand words or less.

Don Tidwell, coward, takes that opportunity to slip out the door.

•  “Does anyone have anything to report?”  Jake looks around Cassie’s barn.  It’s still odd to see Ax and Tobias sitting out of morph and in the open.  There was a brief collective panic when Cassie’s mom poked her head in earlier to ask if they want any lemonade or feeder mice.

“I have,” Marco says grandly, “a date… with Destiny!”

«Oh, you mean Destiny Trembull in tenth grade?»  Tobias immediately undercuts this, because of course.  «She seems nice.»

“And we don’t even have to spend the next three days following her around,” Rachel comments, which gets Marco to lob a horse comb at her head.

«I have accessed one-hundred twenty-three additional channels on my television,» Ax adds.

Cassie and Jake exchange a glance.  “How’s it going, getting a ride home?” Cassie asks.  “Any word on that?”

Ax shrugs — he isn’t even going to fit in on the andalite homeworld anymore when he does finally get there — and looks away.  «I’ve been told that there are more important priorities concerning the Navy.»

«Their gratitude,» Tobias drawls, «is overwhelming.»

•  Chapman explains to Jake’s parents that Jake needs a therapist, and also permission to miss school if he needs to.  Chapman explains the Yeerk Empire and how exactly they recruit humans to Li Saren’s parents for the third, then the fourth, then the fifth time, until they are in tears and begging their son’s forgiveness for doubting him.  Chapman explains to the district that he has no idea how the school ended up with a staircase leading from a supply closet to the alien sinkhole, but that he wants it sealed up posthaste.  Chapman explains himself to Naomi Berenson, and then he does his best to explain Rachel as well.

• "No," Chapman tells the officious-looking little man sitting across his desk. "I don't know of anyone like that. I'm sorry, I wish I could be more help."

The man — he's probably a real detective, he has a badge — leans across the desk to push the photo array a little closer to Chapman. "You're sure? None of these individuals is a..." He glances at his notes. "Voluntary controller."

Chapman looks at the array, which includes images of nearly 100 students. Some of whom weren't controllers at all — that's Tobias Fangor in the upper left corner. Some of whom were lied to by the Sharing, and then lied to by the Yeerk Empire. Some of whom, like Bill Renaldi and his absolutely debilitating major depression, felt they had no choice but to give up their bodies. "Sorry," Chapman says. "None of these individuals appear to be voluntary controllers to the best of my knowledge."

The detective stares at Chapman, waiting for more information. Chapman stares back, waiting for the detective to get bored. He can do this all day, literal hours of silence if that's what it takes. He doubts any mere civilian can say the same.

Sure enough, the detective breaks first. "You see," he says, "we know for a fact that some of these individuals did, in fact, collude with the Yeerk Empire. And we have CCTV footage indicating that you might have been one of those colluders yourself. So anything you can do to help us out..."

Chapman lets the silence go for another minute, long enough for the detective to shift in place. "You're mistaken," he says at last. "About what it means to be a voluntary controller. Or an involuntary one, for that matter. The distinction you're seeking does not exist."

"I'm sorry." The guy has his notepad out now, pen moving. "You're saying... there's functionally no difference between the voluntary hosts and the involuntary ones?"

"Yes," Chapman says, unaware of the hell he's about to unleash. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

•  “Ms. Paloma’s being a butt,” Melissa says, spinning her chair with a toe on the floor.  “I told her that I have a French test the same day as the Bio one, but she just said that means I have to learn to manage my time.”

She just walked into his office.  Without knocking.  Without asking if he’s busy, if he minds, if he’s sure.  Without apologizing for her existence.  She walked in, she sat down uninvited, and now here she is complaining to him like any normal teenager.

“That sounds stressful.”  Chapman is choosing his words with infinite care.  He’s six years old again, holding a butterfly cupped in his palms and knowing that even a millimeter’s clumsiness will crush this precious living jewel.  Thinking this.  This is what I want.  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says.

She came in unprompted.  She just walked right in.

“I hate French.”  Melissa spins the chair again.  “It’s all those lists of vocab words, and I can’t even say half of them correctly…”

“Do you want me to help you study?” Chapman asks.

Her head pops up with the force of her surprised, pleased smile.  “You’d do that?”

That’s it, then.  He’s never leaving this job.  Paperwork and all.

[glass-noodle]

lab merman AU part 16 🌅💗

a force to move worlds

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Kofi <3 | Commissions <3

Taglist under the cut!

@dokidokisadness @extraordinaryandroid @dirty-droid @bluewolven @maddsmallow @aesthetichoney2111 @marilady @iwonderwh0 @rurousha @thatsgoodweather @clocks-declaring @shaed @binxwells @nothinggathers @treeffles @akakonight @djeris @timebird84 @averyshittyseal @jayfirebird @username-is-required @go-flow-bro @leelany-world @cosmogyral-cat @a-space-in-the-void @flitewulf @canofworms95 @fandomhell97 @scurvioli @reality-was-stolen @kibikikou @celinamcm @zenithier @kibze @neverlet @idlebirdsparagon @nekojetto @unstablerk800 @fearlessjones @basenikon @jei-rifni @isu0 @nota-deviant @leon-lemon0 @tartrazeen @ranunculus-bloom @katlakitty @temporary-enthusiasm @blue-lothus @paopuofhearts

Feel free to dm me if you’d like to be removed from the list. Taglist here!

HHHHHh worked double-time to get this out in time for mermay 😩💦 Sorry it’s late. Thank you for your patience and for sticking with me this far!! I appreciate y'all so much ;w; <3

[biggesthomuradefender]

i hope that it’s clear that when i say homura “didn’t do anything wrong”, i mean it as more of an inside joke, as it’s also a common and popular fandom joke to say “*insert character* didn’t do anything wrong”.

if i were being honest/serious, it would be much more accurate for me to say that homura did the absolute best she could w what she knew how and what she thought to do, just like all of the other girls. and just like all of the other girls, homura has made mistakes, have done bad things, have had bad thoughts, have been selfish in some ways, etc.

and i honestly don’t even fault them for it, at least not harshly. they are just 14-15 yr old girls, children going thru puberty (a very emotional time) while being put and forced into impossible, traumatizing situations, after all.

and in that sense specifically, i say homura didn’t do anything “wrong”. :)

[shynmighty]

Screenshot re-draw 😎

[appledoves]

quiet room

[sincerely-sofie]

*Skitters up to you on all fours and drops this in your lap, then scrambles up the walls and onto the ceiling and immediately falls asleep*

Comic time! Lucky wakes up in the middle of the night and has a chat with Sen in this one.

[glacial-heart]

i don't have anything cool for the ultratober 10-13 redesign prompt, so have this headcanony design instead

[buttercup-art]

i really need to draw Noa with her coat more often

[brekkie-e]

Listen, I get that a lot of people's dislike of white-haired Lavellan's comes from over exposure, which is valid and happens to the best of us. But most of the time, when I see posts about folks not liking them, the frustration centers around them being this unearthly ethereal white-haired barbie doll. And I'm sure that is also common.

But as someone who loves my dinky white haired Lavellan, and also feels like she's one of my most human characters, I want to ramble about all the ways she is not just a beautiful barbie doll power fantasy. Because my nerd is pretty. She IS. But she also has the puffiest under eyes you ever saw. Depending on the day, there may be dark circles. There isn't a cream on the market that can make this lady look properly rested. When you combine that with the near constant sunburn on her nose turning it red, she has the air of someone that is in a permanent state of allergy season.

Going from the top down, she also has a tooth gap. And while we are here, they are pretty darn crooked. Thedas doesn't have orthodontists. I wouldn't say she has horrible teeth. But she has perfectly human imperfect teeth that make for a memorable smile for all the wrong (right) reasons.

Her left ear is missing a big chunk out of it from being hit by an arrow. It gives her the same lightly ragged look of a stray cat.

She has moles. The one on her chin grows a long and shockingly white hair out of it. She pulls it out. If it's because she's insecure about it or because picking at it is a nervous tick, she doesn't even know at this point because she's done it for so many years.

The hair on her arms is very fine and white. It is also very, very fuzzy. The kind of peach fuzz that catches the light and makes itself known. It didn't bother her when she lived with her clan because she has a lot of siblings, and they all have it. But someone casually remarks on it during her time with the Inquisition, maybe in jest saying her arms look more like a dwarf's than an elf's. Suddenly, she wears sleeves a lot more often.

I am pretty attached to the bean pole frame Lavellan gets in Inquisition because it's hard to headcanon out for me when it's constantly there on screen. That being said, her legs have some hefty cellulite going on in the back of those thighs. Her flat little ass is dimpled. There are stretch marks on the insides of her thighs, and on her butt. She thinks that's unfair given her complete and utter lack of curves. Knees? Knobby. Her shins always have bruises on them from bumping into something or another.

Various other things I think about and am fond of for her. Her sword hand is calloused. It's often dry and cracked, with hang nails like a construction worker. She tries to take care of it, but how do you out self-care the kind of wear and tear constant travel and fighting does to a person.

Her eyebrows are so pale and thin that it doesn't even look like she has them half the time. Her scalp can get sunburns where her hair parts. She gets a pimple in the same spot like clockwork every time her period comes around. She has one toe that's just inexplicably uglier than the rest.

And she's still pretty. She's still little miss doomed by the narrative.

Secretly, I didn't really have a point to this post beyond wanting to talk about my character's endearing imperfections. But I'll try to wrap this up with something coherent. You can use the stereotypical "pretty" color palette and still create a deeply human character. You can also use a unique color palette and still end up with a design or attitude that gives off "this character's sweat smells like roses and peonys."

I'm not saying that white-haired Lavellan's don't come with the baggage of over-exposure or the weight of heavy handed white savior energy. I'm not saying they can't be done badly. I am just sad thinking there are other folks out there that see all the "stereotypical Lavellan" posts, and also feel a knee-jerk impulse to redesign a beloved oc to be more like-able. At the end of the day, oc's are for their creator. Nobody is going to like your oc more than you. So make one that speaks to you.

And hey. Maybe you are guilty of making your oc's perfect pretty Barbie dolls. Nothing wrong with a pretty lady (or man but that's not really the point of the post.) But speaking for myself, I fall a little in love with every oc someone gives a perfectly normal "defect" to. So next time you find yourself making a hot girl... mix it up a bit and consider giving her toe hair. You might be surprised by how much that detail sticks with you.

[bogkeep]

we have a beand new polishing workshop at school, i've spent half the week making this thing So Very Shiny